The studio began with experiments in the language of architecture, drawing inspiration from music. Each team selected a musical fragment from four composers: Olivier Messiaen (b. 1908, Avignon–d. 1992), John Luther Adams (b. 1953, Meridian MS), Tomás Marco (b. 1942, Madrid), Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952 Helsinki–d. 2023) and created models within a rectangular volume of 13x26x13m in 1:100 scale for the midterm presentation.

Messiaen’s inspiration from Utah’s Bryce Canyon and from birdsong (Des Canyons Aux Etoiles) and Luther Adam’s exploration of the ecology of music are closely linked. This studio’s initial research into the works of these composers extended to the writings of environmental scientist E.O. Wilson, particularly his book Half Earth, 2016, which advocates that “only by committing half of the planets’ surface to nature can we hope to save the immensity of life-forms that compose it.” The spatial energy of daylight, a fusion of structure and light, human scale, and landscape, were explored via study models.

The program is a non-denominational chapel for chamber music, seating 450. The project is sited in the outer boroughs of Granada. The cross-fertilization of music, painting, sculpture, and architecture is a core aim of this studio.

This studio was taught with the assistance of associate faculty Maria Ryder.

“It’s probable that in the artistic hierarchy birds are the greatest musicians existing on our planet…In nature I find the ultimate inspiration for my compositions. The perfect harmony and balance can be found in the simplest of things.” “Music is the bridge between the physical and the spiritual, a vessel through which we can glimpse the transcendent… My goal in composing is to capture the essence of the divine and make it tangible through sound… I believe that music has the power to heal, to uplift, and to transform.” ‐ Olivier Messiaen

“When I was 20, Höene-Wronsky’s definition of music was probably what first started me thinking of music as spatial – as bodies of intelligent sounds moving freely in space…” – Edgard Varèse The composer Edgard Varèse, one of the most important and original of modern times, was born in Paris but spent the greater part of his life in New York City. The hypothesis for this studio project is to design a 13,750 sqf Center for Music and the Arts to hold the Varèse Archives, a library, and serve as a catalyst for young emerging composers and artists in all media. The site for the Center is proposed on the corner of Sullivan and Houston Street, only a block from Varèse’s former residence at 188 Sullivan Street.

The first experimental Columbia studio focused on music as a heuristic device to imagine a language of architecture was held in 1989 with Morton Feldman as the point of departure. This studio departs from the music of Iannis Xenakis and culminates in public space proposals for the disused industrial waterfront of the Greek city of Patra. The creative energies of these 12 graduate students driven by the brilliant teaching of Dimitra Tsachrelia and Eirini Tsachrelia, both Architects born in Patra has resulted in three amazing proposals for Patra due to teamwork and enthusiastic cooperation. Work on the language of architecture is important to open spatial and experiential potentials of the 21st century. As John Cage wrote in one of his visual poems ‘ The arts are not isolated from one another but engage in dialogue, this understanding will introduce new kinds of spatial phenomena, however each art can do what another cannot, it has been predictable therefore, that new music will be answered by the new architecture -work we have not yet seen’ John Cage (who I met several times in NYC) stood as an example of free thinking, international peace and preservation of the natural world. As a futurist he foresaw the creative future of architecture in new music. Let us experiment!    - Steven Holl 2017 ____________________________________________________________ MUSIC IS NOT A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE Different kinds of music employ different kinds of vocabulary. There are overlaps, but overlaps are outnumbered by divergences and singularities. Iannis Xenakis went even further, proclaiming “Music is not a language. Any musical piece is akin to a boulder with complex forms, with striations and engraved designs atop and within, which one can decipher in a thousand different ways…” Emphasizing the ‘thingness’ of his own compositional vocabulary, IX’s music is meant to challenge audiences: “The listener must be gripped whether he likes it or not, drawn into the flight path of the sounds without special training being necessary. The sensual shock must be just as forceful as when one hears a clap of thunder or looks into a bottomless abyss.” Building on the dappled intersections throughout history of basic principles underpinning music, science and the natural world, IX sought to fuse music with the latest breakthroughs in science and mathematics in what he called “art-alloy” — combining principles of each as a fused entity rather than conceptual syzygy. Music is sounds in time and space — whether the flight path of sounds is like thunder, abyss or something else — in the same way that architecture is structure in space and light. This Architectonics of Music Studio challenged the art-alloy and sensual shock of Iannis Xenakis’ compositions to inspire an approach towards a more personal architectural vocabulary. – Raphael Mostel 2017

“Architecture makes music stand still; here time turns to space” —Robert Kelly The aim of the studio was the study of Architectural Language focused on Structure and Light. Emphasis was given on interior spaces with their inspiration in musical fragments. This experimental studio was conducted in three parts. Part One: Language. Each student did a geometrical analysis in terms of linear, planar or volumetric language of a canonical example of modern architecture. Part two: Synthesis of ‘linguistic collisions’. The students worked in teams of two and synthesized spatial fragments, focusing on structure and light. Each group developed physical models within two cubes of 16x16x16 inches in scale 1/4” = 1’-0”. Part three: Music: Blocks of Movement / Time The final projects were developed in relation with a music fragment selected by composer Raphael Mostel, such as Raintree Sketch II (by T. Takemitsu), Mikka S (by I. Xenakis) or Coptic Light (by M. Feldman). The music concepts and architecture merged for the design of a new 54,000 sqf Studio Building for Architecture and Music sited at the campus of Tokyo University of Arts. Blocks of Movement/ Time were presented in video and physical models for the final review. Steven Holl and Dimitra Tsachrelia with composer Raphael Mostel

“The plastic arts are presented to us in space; we receive an overall impression before we discover details little by little and at our leisure. Music presupposes before all else a certain organization in Time.” – Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music This studio in two parts experimented with ideas of how Time can be a ”conceptual cement” connecting Music and Architecture. The studio began with experimental models working with material, light, and time. The students were challenged to make a 16″x16″x16″ physical model according to a piece of music by composers such as Edgard Varese, Iannis Xenakis, and John Cage. A 2,000m2 new facility was designed for the Center for Contemporary Music Research, established by the composer Iannis Xenakis in 1979. The students chose among three sites, located at the outskirts of the historical center of Athens, at the districts of Metaxourgio, Omonia and Syntagma. This new facility is envisioned to re-energize the role of the foundation within the city’s cultural life and support multi-disciplinary research on the cultural, social and scientific aspects of musical expression. Steven Holl and Dimitra Tsachrelia with composer Raphael Mostel

The fourth in a series of studios focused on music and architecture, designed to develop cross-disciplinary inspiration to provoke work on new architectural language and directions. Architecture and music both have a tectonics of materials, structure and detail. Unlike a sculpture or a painting that one can turn away from, architecture forms spaces that you move through. Music is a similarly immersive experience, surrounding you. As John Cage said, “A composition is like a house that you can walk around in.” The first three weeks is an exercise to identify, explore and utilize elements of material, detail and tectonics. These elements will enrich and clarify the second exercise as an enabling condition parallel to music. In the second exercise, a new facility for music education is envisioned as a cultural catalyst facility funded by a new federal program focused on inner city sites across the USA. Students choose one of two corner urban sites in Brooklyn which have been selected for their prototypical qualities. Steven Holl and Haiko Cornelissen with composer Raphael Mostel

The studio will study an important historical exhibition, which questioned what architecture is. “ANarchitecture, 1974” was an exhibition co-curated by Gordon Matta Clark and the ANarchitecture Group: Jene Highstein, Suzi Harris, Richard Nonas, Laurie Anderson and Bernard Kirshenbum. The original exhibition twisted and redefined architecture. A hole in the ground that lead to an underground area became architecture, a pile of trash became architecture…Jene Highstein said, “to relate it to the human interaction was the key […] The hole didn’t have to be big enough to get into—but if you could put your mind into it, it became architecture.” Ground rules for this studio were similar to first exhibition: all material is to be Black and White. Any photography is to be black and white. Any video works are to be black and white. Steven Holl and Nick Gelpi with composer Raphael Mostel

Alexander Skryabin died in 1915 when his music was on the point of abandoning tonality. He was planning a grand performance, music/scent/dance/light that would take place in the Himalayas. His composition Poem of Fire (1910) includes a “clavier à lumières” – an implement that played like a piano but which flooded the concert hall with colored light rather than sound. This experimental studio reactivates research in form, structure and material begun in 1982 at Columbia. In 1988 we designed the Stretto House in Dallas parallel to Béla Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936). The site in Budapest is near the birthplace of Béla Bartók. We are working together with the Hungarian architect Tamas Nagy, who is also head of Budapest School of Architecture. The program is a hybrid building. The Bartók Center for Music and Sound, which is about 50,000 sq ft is inserted into the fabric of Budapest. Bartók composed movements of 89 bars according to the Fibonacci sequence “a layering of mismatches”. Steven Holl with Christian Wassmann